Far Cry 4

Double post. This review, man. This review:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/21/far-cry-4-review-war-animals_n_6198412.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

This game sounds like it is pretty solid. I enjoyed 3 enough to want to buy instead of rent it. From the sounds of it I should just buy FC 4.

Indeed, he is a Man of a Thousand Voices. And to think that Twin Perfect calls him a talentless hack.

As for my impressions from playing it, if you liked 3, you'll also like this one. Thought I don't think the story and characters are as strong. It does however make many welcome tweaks and refinements that give its gameplay a leg up over 3.

edited 21st Nov '14 11:33:01 PM by LDragon2

The M79 grenade launcher is easily one of the most versatile weapons in the game, and the one of the most effective. And it's available very early on and I'm still using it while all my other weapon slots are replaced by silenced 50 cal sniper rifles, the signature SMG and the Auto-Crossbow. If you don't need to be quiet and aren't in close quarters, there is zero reason not to pull this puppy out.

I haven't got the M79 yet, though it's been unlocked for a while now. I have the Auto Crossbow though, and it is a thing of beauty. Optical sight, extended magazine = having a sniper's skull in the crosshairs and dropping him with one shot while his mates have no idea I'm in the area.

Still haven't killed a rhino. And I'm still stunned by how well the devs got the behaviour pattern, looks, and feel of the way the Asian rhinoceros is in real life. It's like they took this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_rhinoceros

and weaponized it.

Just use a LMG on the rhinos, or a truck mounted 50 cal. You have to fight crazy with crazy.

The other day I actually managed to get a clean kill on a rhino.

I located one, injected myself with that serum that makes you tougher against bashing attacks, hid in a bush, and then spammed the auto-crossbow on it. Emptied the whole damn clip into the thing as it was turning around to charge me, and then emptied half another after reloading (the serum kept me from taking too much damage from it).

I was very proud.

edited 23rd Nov '14 9:48:23 AM by LizardBite

I'm just waiting for a youtube video where someone manages to knife one to death.

So I beat the game and here are my basic thoughts on the ending.

So apparently your dad was a huge dick who murdered your half-sister, fathered by Pagan, and got killed by your mom in turn. You also get the chance to either shoot Min in the head and turn over the country to either Amita or Sabal (more on these two later) or let him leave, go to the shrine to your dead sister and place the ashes there. Min then goes into exile and turns over the country to you, which he always intended to do. As the secret ending at the pointed out, all the violence was avoidable had you just followed one little order. Pagan basically treats you like a well loved stepson.

Amita and Sabal both go galloping over the Moral Event Horizon After the ending, Amita is enslaving youth to fight/work, effectively turning the Golden Path into FARC meets Mao's Red Guards. So she and her escorts got a taste of my trusty Shredder after she threatened me and then turned her back. Only thing that bugged was that the game considered her a civilian so I got a warning for stopping a proto warlord in her tracks. Oh well. Apparently Sabal goes full fanatic and begins executing anyone who committed any religious sacrilege during the Min regime, which is a lot of people. So the Golden Path either becomes ISIS or FARC, so I guess taking over the Min government and moderating it really is the best option even if it invokes Karma Houdini regarding Pagan.

As for the game itself; it's a solid 8 or 9 out of 10. While it doesn't do much different from 3 it does refine nearly every area; I think the best improvement was the enemy AI who are now slightly better at countering your one man insurgency attempts. My biggest complaint is that both the enemies and the Path leaders needed more fleshing out and Min and his officers needed far more screen time, none of them are going to become as iconic as Vaas for this reason alone. Also you don't unlock some of the really cool weapons until the very end of the game, just like in 3, but the Outpost replay feature mitigates this somewhat.

I got most of the collectables and did all the sidequests, though I need to do more arena events and I skipped most of the races.

I really liked that choosing between Amita and Sabal didn't break down to a trite "hero/villain" choice. Neither was ultimately going to be fantastic for Kyrat. I found myself flip-flopping between them over the Golden Path campaign missions, and I liked that they both told you emphatically that the other one was trying to manipulate you and had their own agenda and the game didn't try to telegraph to you one was better than the other, you really did have to decide for yourself which was the least ideologically repugnant.

I've completed the main story campaign with about 45% completion all up. But I took my sweet time and did a lot of side missions and quests so I could build up XP and cash, and qualify for the skills I wanted. When I play through again I'm going to choose opposite to what I did the first time so I can play the different campaign missions. And I'm also going to work harder at being stealthy during the outpost takeovers, as I kept getting carried away and rushing about the place guns blazing.

If there's any single player DLC down the track, I wonder whether it will be something to do with the radio DJ. I was actually half expecting him to turn up as an actual NPC at some point.

I played on PS 4 and only encountered two bugs. In one, I fell inside a cliff and got stuck. In the other, whenever I tried to set a waypoint to drive somewhere, it kept directing me to some random spot on the map, no matter what location I set. But when I closed the game and went back in again, it was back to normal.

edited 23rd Nov '14 7:39:23 PM by raisingirl83

I killed my first two Rhinos today. One I plinked with my sniper rifle, because I ran out of just about everything else, and still nearly ran out of bullets for it. Once the bugger dropped though, it fell off of a cliff and disappeared so I couldn't loot the thing. Bad form.

Second one, I riddled it with bolts from my Auto-Crossbow, with the aid of a couple of health syringes and the one that lets you take less damage from melee attacks. Looted it of the bolts I put in it and two rhino skins which I promptly turned into extra explosive storage. Thanks to the person above who suggested that strategy, btw. It worked like a charm.

Once you've torn down a few posters, you can meet him. He's down in the south-west part of the map and gives you missions to destroy propaganda centers.

edited 24th Nov '14 7:56:34 AM by LizardBite

Just broke out of Durgesh Prison. That was a bitch of a mission, tbh. My eyes only started to light up when I jumped through a glass-less window into a room which held an Auto-Crossbow, though it still took a few goes after that to get out of there.

Saw a Yeti. Was good.

Anyone got the season pass yet?

Yep, I've just realised that. :)

I saved a bunch of hostages, and just when I was patting myself on the back a bear ran up and began killing everyone. I only managed to save one of them. :(

I LOVED the Shangri-La missions. The boss battle was a bit obnoxious, though.

edited 24th Nov '14 7:16:27 PM by raisingirl83

Funnily enough, I only had to retry that one like twice. And that was because both times I decided to start killing guards. When I decided to keep killing to an absolute minimum, I had no problem. Snuck out undetected, my only kill the snow leopard in that one little cave.

God I love this game. It's the most fun I've had plying a game in a long time. I'm always on the cusp of being done but never quite finished. I can also ride an elephant, and that's great.

I think this game will live longer in my memory, at least, than Far Cry 3. There's just so much stuff to do, see, and kill. But it's the quiet moments that get to me, when there isn't a honey badger trying to nibble on my avatar's dangly bits, when I just look at Kyrat and how beautiful the place is.

Sure, they nobbled the height the mini-copter can fly at so that the grappling hook always has to stay relevant, sometimes the ai controlled enemies have x-ray vision, and some of the achievements are broken and the install from disk routine is fucked beyond recognition, but it's still a brilliant game.

And I actually like being Ajay Ghale. I never really liked the guy in Far Cry 3 much. Would have preferred more Vaas, but that's just me.

Just finished the third bit of the Shangri-La sub campaign, getting the third part of that wall hanging thingy. And I have to say that the experience of getting the thing done wasn't describable in any way that could be printable. I spent about an hour swearing as I kept banging into the canyon walls.

I will get back to FC 4 after i have finished Dragon Age. I enjoyed what I played, but got a bit overwhelmed by the map of THINGS TO DO.

I never really do the races, find the driving a tad frustrating, but I'm glad they have the auto drive function now at least for between waypoints and to aid in combat.

At first it felt almost too much like FC 3 and I started off "saturated" but I really enjoy the rock climbing and verticality of it all. I suppose I just need to have a party RPG in my system at this stage :D

I'm sorry but can someone exactly EXPLAIN why everyone hates Jason Brody? I just can't figure it out. Is it just the fact that he's a well off white dude? Same goes for his friends.

Basically, yes. A lot of people see him as a clueless rich dudebro (or a "So Cal douchebag" as Willis describes him FC 4). Admittedly, he does start out like that, but by the time the game opens proper, he's already broken a bit, and starts changing into a very different character. I like how Yahtzee described him as having to "shed his doughy wonderbread carapace and grow anew."

@Tam, yeah those flying parts are bad, and there are some in the real world with the wing suit as well. It was rough enough with a controller, hard to imagine how bad it would be on PC.

I was daft enough to use mouse and keyboard, aye. Thing is, I don't think the controller would have helped all that much, given that I didn't know how to gain height back once I started losing it. I almost wish I had thought of praying to my computer's machine spirit for help.

I wrote something

Quite a good article actually. Nice work.